


Only infinite black space / Three words on the whole page

by fleaflofloyd



Category: Call the Midwife
Genre: F/F, Fluff and Angst, Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-28
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:28:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25568254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fleaflofloyd/pseuds/fleaflofloyd
Summary: She peers at those figures, as they continue to morph into--She knows them.She knows who they are, deep within her, she just can't grasp at it, can't--They're crying.She can hear them crying and see it now as her vision clears a little more.It makes the aching worse.-----This fic is an answer to a lovely person asking me if Val remembered any of the events in Chapter 4 of 'I never thought I'd be the one (to be saving you)'.If you have not read that fic, please go there instead.Comments welcome.
Relationships: Lucille Anderson/Valerie Dyer
Kudos: 17





	Only infinite black space / Three words on the whole page

An infinite black, solid and absolute, envelops her. 

Then--

The smallest speck of light bleeds in, the beginning of a discomfort forming somewhere inside. 

It keeps going, lighting up the dark, sparking the start of her consciousness. 

Something--

Something hurts. 

It aches, deep within. 

The darkness is leaving her, the light--

She's fighting for that light, fighting to open--

It's all a blur, things moving in her vision, unformed, incomplete. 

She squints against the intrusion, the ache in her--

Something is--

Wrong.

The moving blurs are forming into--

Figures. 

Faces. 

Someone is here with her. 

Someone can help her. 

She peers at those figures, as they continue to morph into--

She knows them. 

She knows who they are, deep within her, she just can't grasp at it, can't--

They're crying. 

She can hear them crying and see it now as her vision clears a little more. 

It makes the aching worse. 

"Don' cry." 

She comprehends her voice, but it's strained and far away, like it isn't in her. 

There's a weight that is--

Something is over her-- 

Something is--

Something has happened. 

The figures come closer, crying harder. She can feel something settle on her, and something else further down. 

Something has--

"Oh my baby, there you are." 

Her mum. 

It's her mum. 

And--

"Oh, precious." 

Lucille. 

_They'll look after--_

The weight lifts from her as she drifts away, aware of the pain inside and the presences beside her, but not much else. 

\---

She awakens later, her mind slow to comprehend it's the room that's dark now, pain gripping her, making it hard to breathe. 

Someone is suddenly there, hand at her cheek.

They're blurry, but it's--

Lucille.

"Val, you have broken ribs--you need to take small breaths, okay? Like this--" 

Lucille breathes, in short, measured lengths, and Val fights the panic, fights her foggy mind to follow her instructions, accompanying her with her own breathing.

It's a mask over her mouth and nose. She wiggles her jaw, feeling the contraption move with her. 

"It's helping you, precious, just breathe...that's it," Lucille continues, talking through her inhales and exhales. "You've got a punctured lung, but you're okay, you just need to stay calm." 

Val continues to take short breaths, her eyesight clearing a little. 

Everything is hurting.

Her head is pounding. 

Her throat feels like-- 

"Lu...is there..." 

_(( The waves filter in, the sound of them calming her in the half moonlight, even as the fierce Frinton wind flicks her hair about._

_"Why are we here again?"_

_Valerie turns her head towards Lucille, seeing the lights of the Walton Pier off in the distance behind her._

_"You said you'd never ridden on a carousel, so--" ))_

Valerie blinks out of the--

It was Frinton. 

With Lucille. 

They--

But Lucille is moving, reaching for something to the side of her. Val tries to follow what she's doing, but something is keeping her from moving her head.

She can hear it pouring out. 

"Lu..."

"I'm here." 

She comes back into view, fingers reaching for Val's mask. "Dry mouth?"

Val nods. 

Lucille eases the mask away, down her face to her chin. Leans out of sight again, bringing a cup and straw back to Val's lips. 

_Water._

She remembers the word as she sips it.

They've never been there. 

They've never--

At least she--

She doesn't know. 

It feels like a memory. Feels familiar, like it's the truth. 

What is absolutely true, a certainty in the semi-darkness is that her leg is in a cast in front of her, hanging up like a flashing signal. 

Something has--

"Easy," Lucille says, taking the cup away and setting it back where Val can't see. She draws the mask back up over Val's face and then sits down on the edge of the bed. 

Val forgets the ocean in favour of seeking out something else. 

"W-what happened?" 

Lucille stills. She's looking at her own hands in her lap. Then brown eyes are looking back at Val, watery and pained. 

Val stops breathing. 

"You were hit by a car--you've been..." 

She's crying, shedding tears in the darkness. 

"You nearly...you nearly..." 

The word won't come to Lucille. 

The word won't come to Valerie either, but the feeling does. 

_End._

_Finish._

No, that's not--

_Gone._

No. It's on the tip of her--

_Died._

It's the absolute truth. 

_Died._

That's what this pain all over is. This pain in her chest. The pounding in her head. 

The cast. 

_Shit._

Lucille is crying and Val's chest blooms with a different kind of ache. 

She needs to breathe through it. 

Short. Shallow. 

Lucille is upset. Lucille is--

_(( She kicks the water up at an unsuspecting Lucille in front of her._

_The look on her face is priceless for half a second, before Val realises she's made a grave mistake._

_"You think that's funny, huh?"_

_Lucille kicks multiple times, spraying ocean water up at her, hitting her fully in the chest and face, soaking-- ))_

Val blinks out of it. 

She's--

Is that real? 

When would they have had... 

But Lucille is crying, and she can't dwell on it. 

She focuses on moving her hand, sliding it towards Lucille to comfort. It takes a long moment, and a whole lot of strength, but she manages to reach her. 

Her friend looks up at her. 

There's something strange in her eyes, something Val can't--

She keeps breathing carefully, the way Lucille has taught her. 

"I'm here, Lu...gonna take more...than--a...a..."

Lucille cries harder. Val watches as she takes her hand in both of hers, and draws it up to kiss her knuckles.

It feels wholly unfamiliar, and suddenly like everything she wanted. 

Something has happened to--

Something important. 

_A car._

_You were hit._

But catching her breath and moving her hand has worn her out. Trying to understand, trying to catch up has exhausted her. It's sinking into her skin, making her eyelids heavy.

She fights it. She doesn't want to go. 

"Lu...don' cry. I'm..."

She feels another kiss to her knuckles, then--

\---

She's standing in front of the Eiffel Tower, camera in her hand, taking photos of Lucille. 

She's in a yellow sundress with her hair down. White sunglasses on. Looking for all the world like she belongs here. Fits right into the sunshine, and the warmth. 

"Surely you've got a good one by now," Lucille says, giving up her pose and walking back towards her. 

Val's heart stops when Lucille steps into her space to kiss her on the lips. 

This is heaven, she decides. 

\---

She opens her eyes with the dream intact. 

She hasn't had it since... 

May.

It still feels familiar. Like a memory, sequestered in her mind. 

But it isn't. 

It's just a thought, imagined into something real. 

She knows this now. 

She hadn't in that hospital bed. 

There'd been flashes of other things too, that first week in the hospital. Dr Turner had listened intently to her explanations of them; her mind, groggy and slow from the concussion and the sedatives, had made finding the correct words difficult, and she'd struggled to make much sense at the time.

Dr Stephenson, one of her surgeons, had chalked up her imaginations to the quinalbarbitone still in her system. There was precedent for this, he'd absently told her, but he'd failed to go into specifics, other than to say the sedative was hallucinogenic, and she'd be better once it left her bloodstream. 

And that was that. 

Her memories, the ones she knew to be absolutely true, had come back. Some had drifted back to her over a number of days, and some had hit her square in the chest. The way that car had. Her grandmother's death had battered Val again, her mother finally there to catch her when she needed it, to hold her when her tears flooded out. 

Trixie's presence had brought back recollections of the night they'd discovered Gran's terrible deeds, and Val had tried gallantly to not let it show on her face as her friend cried with relief and squeezed her hand. Sleep had been more fitful that night than the previous ones stuck there, despite Lucille's return to keep her company. 

And then Val had been distracted once again by Lucille's explanation of her confession. The memory of writing the letter and the fireworks booming overhead had merged into one. Lucille's kaleidoscope eyes beckoning her, warm, surreal, had felt like a new beginning. Needed. Lucille had kissed her knuckles again, reverently, once Val had stopped arguing against them. Against their love, and what it really meant for Lucille's life. 

By then, all thought for the dream, for the little imaginations of Lucille in Frinton, were forgotten. 

She'd had bigger fish to fry. Her employment status had loomed large, alongside her increasing pain. 

_By God, you were a rude cow that week._

Valerie huffs out a laugh, the sound sudden in the silence of the room. She snaps her head to the left, waiting for Lucille to wake beside her. 

Her love stirs, and peels open her eyes. "Did you just snore, or am I dreaming?" 

Val kicks herself silently for having woken her.

"No snoring anymore, just--go back to sleep, honey." 

Lucille blinks further awake, taking in the sudden endearment. 

_"You might slip up with that, Val."_

_"I know."_

Lucille had been right, of course. If she'd gotten into a habit of saying it, she might've said it at the wrong time, in the wrong--

"You with me, precious?" 

Val comes back. Lucille has lifted her head from the pillow and is leaning towards her, worry evident. 

Val smiles at her. They could get away with that one. And another. 

"I'm here, chick," she says quietly, amusement on her tongue. 

Lucille rolls her eyes, but settles closer, sliding an elbow around her pillow to lean on her hand. "Why are you awake?" 

She sighs. "I dreamt about Paris again." 

Lucille's brow lowers at the answer. 

Val feels the blankets move, an arm sliding over her stomach.

"Anything different this time?"

Val takes a moment to lift her hand, splaying it over Lucille's wrist, feeling her skin and the edge of her pyjama sleeve. She's comforted by the familiarity of both. 

"Just the same. Me, the camera, you, fancy radio aerial. It's all rather--"

She's on the verge of saying _boring_ when she sees Lucille's eyes narrow. 

"I mean, it's a wonderful dream to have, it's just...well worn in. Still feels like a memory though." 

Lucille's eyes soften. Her arm slips back a little, her thumb coming up over Val's, linking them together. 

"It will be one day...we'll have a wonderful holiday there and enjoy ourselves and then we can reminisce about it. Bring it up until our friends are over us." 

Valerie chuckles, saying lightly, "Trixie just had a really great time in Portofino, didn't you know?" 

Lucille fights not to smile. Her eyes are sparkling anyway. "Leave her alone, you." 

Valerie smiles. "I'm so glad she's doing better." 

Lucille sighs and closes her eyes. "She says the same about you." 

"Really?" 

Lucille opens her eyes, and they're suddenly watering. "Of course...they all do."

The weight of her near-death experience is coming down on them now. 

Valerie doesn't want it to.

She refuses to let it. 

So she leans over and grazes her lips along Lucille's, eyes open to see her reaction, to remember she's here. 

Lucille is still for a brief moment, buried underneath the memories. 

But then she's kissing back, chasing Valerie's lips as she falls down to the pillow. Val opens her mouth to deepen their kiss. To ease that weight from them, before it settles. 

She's here, she's alive, and she's kissing her love. 

Lucille's hand presses into her pyjama top, fingers sliding here and there. Valerie lifts her left hand, fumbling for purchase at Lucille's waist as she slides closer. 

Val wants her. She needs that want to smother her, to flood her senses, the ways she knows it can. The way it always does when they're together like this. 

Lucille is looming over the side of her, the warmth of her body just as delicious as her kisses. She's waiting for Val to make a move, to roll them back over so she's on top, the way she knows Val likes it. 

Not that she's firm about it. 

Lucille's made her come undone a half dozen times before. Sometimes it's her teeth biting into Lucille's pillow, silencing a moan, the smell of her shampoo all over it driving her wild. 

It's what she wants now.

She wants to be loved. 

She eases from the kiss, nose brushing Lucille's, featherlight, again and again. 

"Touch me, Lu." 

Lucille pulls back a little to look at her, brown eyes blown wide. 

"Please." 

Lucille answers her with a burning kiss, tongue searching as the hand on Val's stomach slides lower, slipping under the waistband of her pyjama bottoms. 

She cants up into Lucille's fingers when they find her, humming into their kiss. She feels the warmth, the desire spread through her stomach, and lower still. 

She loves this woman. 

She goes looking for Lucille's skin under her pyjamas, her hand finding a breast quickly. Lucille moans into her mouth, Val rolling a palm over it, the nipple hardening in response. 

Lucille's fingers lengthen along her centre, circling. 

It's so good, so good it makes her moan, the sound breaking from between their lips. 

"Ssh, precious," Lucille mumbles, kissing her deeply, hungrily. 

Val's hand works at that nipple, fingers dragging along it. 

She wants it in her mouth. 

She fumbles her hands out and goes blindly searching for Lucille's buttons, her fingers managing to undo a couple before she gets stuck at the third one down. 

She growls in frustration, their kiss ending as Lucille laughs. 

The fingers disappear from between her legs, her waistband slapping quickly against her skin, Lucille rushing to pull her flannel off. 

It gets flung away. 

"Take your pants off," Lucille says, pulling the blankets down the bed out of their way. 

Val smiles. "I like this side of you."

Lucille gives her a heated look, and Val feels desire thrum inside of her. She does as she's told. Strips it all off as Lucille does the same. 

The air in the room is cold, but it'll make no difference soon enough.

Lucille scoots sideways on their joined beds, and Valerie understands.

The bed ends are always in the way when she goes down on Lucille, and the solution is them angling themselves. 

Lucille is going to... 

Val inhales sharply. 

"Okay?" Lucille asks.

"Of course, honey." 

Val shimmies around and sets the pillow underneath her head. She's gonna need that soon enough. 

The thought is enough to make her--

Lucille kisses her suddenly, and Val comes back to the moment, lifting her hands up to pull Lucille against her. 

"Love you," she gets out quickly.

"Love you too," Lucille replies. 

They kiss, long and hard. 

It builds deliciously, Lucille slowly kissing her way underneath Valerie's chin, down her neck, taking in that necklace, kissing it carefully, again and again against skin. 

"Mine," Lucille whispers, licking gold into the divet between Val's collarbones. 

"Yours," she replies, sighing gratefully. 

Lucille's hand returns to rubbing careful circles around her secret spot. 

Val moans quietly. 

She wants to be loved completely, fully. 

She wants to be--

Lucille kisses over her breast, tongue and lips working over and around her nipple, sending shots of desire through Valerie's body.

She wants to be loved completely. 

"Lu," she breathes out. 

Lucille hums in reply, continuing her efforts on Val's chest and the apex of her thighs. 

"Lucille," she says again, louder. 

Her love stills, looking up at her, hands coming away. 

"You okay?"

"Can you..."

She lets the sentence go, swallowing the sudden lump in her throat. 

"Val, what's wrong?" 

Lucille moves up her body, searching her eyes for some indication of the issue. Valerie brings her hands up to cup Lucille's cheeks. She breathes in and out quickly, trying to calm her emotions. 

"Will you kiss my scars?" 

It's whispered into the air between them, her voice breaking on the last word. 

Lucille looks surprised for a split second, before nodding carefully. She turns her head to kiss Valerie's palm. 

The tenderness between them lights a flame inside Valerie. 

Lucille kisses her slowly, softly, like she needs it. 

She does. 

She needs all of Lucille now. 

The woman senses it somehow, and shifts back down, kissing her way to a healed wound. She's kissed over them before, treating them no different to the other areas of Valerie's body. 

She's never solely concentrated on them before. 

Valerie watches Lucille pause above the raised skin of her larger scar, spanning her ribs. Cut to fix them. To remove one from her lung.

Lucille bends her head and brushes her lips softly along the start of the mark. She keeps that same pressure going as she trails down the scar, poking her tongue out to taste as her fingers feather Val's skin. 

Valerie's breathing in and out quickly, chest expanding and sinking under Lucille's mouth, the beautiful aching between her legs growing as she feels - - as she watches - - Lucille love her. Her hands have slipped over two squared shoulders, feeling the muscles beneath Lucille's golden skin work. Valerie wishes Lucille's hair was down, so she could tangle her fingers in it, instead of it being pinned in her bonnet. She moves her hands up to the base of Lucille's hairline and feels there instead. 

"Good?" Lucille whispers in between kisses. 

"The best," Valerie sighs out, her hips rising off the bed with want. 

Lucille chuckles, and slides a hand downwards, down through coarse hair, to that soft spot of Val's, hidden from everyone else but her. Valerie's breath hitches, and she hums in appreciation as Lucille's fingers glide there, all the while still kissing her way down her rib scar towards the tail of it. 

Then she's over to the second one, slightly left of the centre of Val's abdomen. Cut open to remove her destroyed spleen and to repair the bleeding. Lucille's lips ghost there, then press down harder, tongue darting once again to taste, to feel the hardened edges. 

Slowly, slowly down. 

Valerie gets ready for the inevitable trailing to where she needs Lucille the most, her lover's lips reaching the end of the surgical mark below her belly button. 

Except Lucille moves back up, towards her rib scar again, to--

Valerie stops breathing when Lucille pauses, her fingers stilling as she simply looks at the inch-long scar she'd made.

Cut to let her breathe. 

Lucille's face sinks down to it, lips gentle, kissing the scar just once, before closing her eyes and resting her forehead there. 

Valerie feels her eyes water at the sight, at the reverence of Lucille, scarred as well from that night. 

Val croaks out an _I love you_ , feeling her throat tighten over the words as Lucille looks up at her with tears pooling in her beautiful brown eyes. 

She comes up quickly then, their lips finding each other in the silence, kissing with fervour in an effort to try and rid themselves of their heartache over that night nine months ago. 

Val suspects it will always be there, somewhere inside.

But being with Lucille makes her forget the hurt.

Lucille has healed her and continues to do so, every day that she gets to be with her. 

Especially in moments like this. 

Lucille is kissing back down her body, her fingers kick-starting again as her lips forget the scars once more. 

And then her mouth is on her. 

Valerie bites her lip as a moan threatens to break free. 

She's going to need the pillow soon if she--

She reaches up and drags it from beneath her head as Lucille swirls her tongue around the centre of her, fingers teasing her entrance. 

She loves this. 

She loves her. 

She wants her inside. 

"Stop teasing," she gets out, looking down at Lucille, at home between her legs. 

Lucille acquiesces, looking up at her through her eyelashes as her fingers slide in, unobstructed.

Her mouth goes back on her, and it's heaven and light and love all at once. 

"Oh God," Val moans, too loud for the night to cover up. 

"The pillow--" Lucille says, barely stopping. 

Val lifts it over her head and buries her face in it as the heat inside of her builds, another moan escaping her, muffled this time. 

Lucille works out a rhythm, fingers in and out as her tongue and lips taste Valerie, drawing a symphony of sounds from her, conducting a well-rehearsed composition they both know. 

Val's hips lift from the bed in haste, searching for more, and she feels Lucille's mattress shift, her right leg suddenly lifted up over Lucille's shoulder, in a very familiar way. 

She's done that so many times to Lucille she's lost count. 

_Quick learner_ , she thinks, before another moan escapes her. 

Valerie lifts her left leg up to mirror the other, her heels pressing into Lucille's back, her skin warm.

Her hips are off the bed now as Lucille works faster. She can feel Lucille's other arm supporting her hip. 

Valerie pulls the pillow away and chances a look at her. Lucille's up on her elbows, working away diligently, ever the conscientious lover. 

The sight makes her legs shake. 

She wants to watch her like this. 

Damn the pillow. 

She slips it back under her head, and drags her hands quickly over her nipples, the ripple of desire shooting straight to where Lucille is. She does it again and bites her lip at the bliss. 

"Faster, Lu..." 

Her love looks up and they lock eyes, Lucille holding her gaze as she speeds up, fingers in a new fury, mouth sucking tightly. 

She's getting close. 

She has to be quiet, she has to--

She moans deeply. 

She doesn't care. 

Not right now when she's being smothered with love. 

She doesn't care if they're heard. 

They love each other, and that is--

Nothing about that will ever be wrong. 

Nothing. 

She inhales sharply at a new wave hitting her, and pinches at her nipples, biting her lip hard as she groans. 

She can taste copper now, can feel her lip stinging, but Lucille's fingers are reaching deeper inside of her, making her forget, making her body sing out in pleasure. 

She drops a hand down to Lucille's head, urging her on, hearing her love moan out loud as well. 

It's the beginning of the peak, Valerie pinching and shaking and bending her head back. Pressing her feet in and feeling and loving and biting and going higher, higher up the, higher to the, to the--

Lucille is going at a devastatingly blissful pace, so fast, so deep, closing in on heaven, closing in on, closing--

Then she's crying out around a bitten lip, body shaking as the pleasure explodes inside of her, overwhelming her. 

Her legs collapse as Lucille still laps at her, still works her fingers against her closing walls, her body trembling in the aftermath. 

Lucille's fingers slip out of her and Val watches as she carelessly wipes them on the bedsheet, bringing an arm up to wipe at her mouth. 

"Come here," Val gets out, still fighting for her breath to return. 

Lucille climbs up over her, their bodies melding together as Lucille notices her injury. 

"You bit your lip," she says, fingers coming up to graze the area.

"Kiss it better?" Valerie asks softly. 

Lucille smiles and does so. 

The sting is worth it. 

\---

Valerie sits both of them up minutes later, setting Lucille squarely in her lap, and returns to her plan. 

Lucille mewls her appreciation, watching as Valerie takes her nipple into her mouth, hand already buried where it's needed. 

It builds and builds, and then bursts all over them again. 

\---

She wakes to an unfamiliar bedroom, the sound of a shower running in the other room. 

Lucille is singing _Something Good_ from the Sound of Music, light and carefree. 

Valerie sits up in the bed to listen carefully, glancing out the open window.

The Eiffel Tower stands off in the distance, halfway towards the morning horizon. 

_Paris with my girl_ , she thinks. 

What a great day to be alive. 

\---

Valerie wakes, blinking against the bright light of the morning, whispers of the new dream still in her ear. 

It's just her thoughts, imagined into something real. 

Something to strive for. 

The bed is empty beside her. 

She rolls over, feeling her muscles ache as she searches for the alarm clock on her bedside table. 

There's a piece of paper there, covering up the time.

She smiles at the familiar handwriting. 

Three words written, the only ones on the page. 


End file.
